by P. N. Elrod
Big brown eyes, snapping fire. “You son of a bitch.”
Paco kept looking at the radio. “Hey, talk nice like a lady,” he admonished her fondly. He sounded normal, but the blank look on his face didn’t change. He reached across and played with the volume dial. The static rose to earsplitting levels. Without a word, Newton stepped forward and turned it down.
“You want me to find a station for you, Mr. Paco?”
“Always with the questions. Make up your own damn mind.” Paco sat back and frowned at something past my right shoulder. I looked behind me, but nothing was there but the drawn curtains of the window.
“I rest my case,” I said gently, almost whispering it. I began focusing on her, hardly thinking twice about it. It was safe enough even with all the chaperons watching. “Now, we need to talk, Angela.”
She was falling into it. Not in a big way, but her grip on the gun eased and her expression softened.
“I need you to listen to me.”
Then Doc stepped exactly between us. “Oh, no you don’t.”
Angela snapped full awake. “Doc, what are you—”
“I said there’s something not right about him, and this is part of it.”
“What do you mean?”
“You gotta take me on trust for this, girl, but he’s got something up his sleeve what ain’t normal. I seen him work it on Sullivan’s men.”
She didn’t discount him. “Work what?”
“The stuff he was just starting on you. I once saw a sideshow magician do like that, had a hypnosis act going for him. He’d pick a yokel outta the audience and have him thinking he’s a chicken quick as scat. This mug’s got the same thing going for him, only better. He’s not too obvious on it, but when he wants something from you, he can get it, and you’d never know what hit you.”
I shook my head, smiling. “Where’d you get your booze tonight? I want some for myself and my friends.”
Dead silence. They weren’t in the mood for a comedian. Doc was a drunk, but he still had plenty of influence with them.
“Okay, I’ll go with you on this,” she said after a moment. “You watch him, and if you don’t like anything he does, plug him one.”
“I am a healer, girl. I don’t ‘plug’ people if I can help it, it ain’t in the oath I took.”
“All right, then you give Newton the high sign and he can do the shooting.”
“That’s more like it.” Doc settled in on the arm of the sofa and Newton made a place on the other arm. They could look at each other over the heads of Paco and Angela.
This was the last thing I needed, and I felt like groaning, but held it in. I’d just have to persuade her without artificial help.
“You were talking pretty big last night,” said Angela, addressing me. “Made a lot of promises. You remember the one I made you?”
“If I screwed up you’d hang me from a meat hook. It’s kind of burned into my memory.”
“Good, then you won’t be too surprised when it happens.”
“Uh-uh—I fulfilled my part of the deal. I got Doc out and you’ve got your payoff money. You shouldn’t have any beef with me.”
“Money?” she asked, looking innocent and blank.
Something lurched unpleasantly in my chest. This was no time to panic. I made myself speak. “Don’t tell me you didn’t find those bags in the car?”
The innocence turned cynical. “Yeah, we found ’em. I thought they were a joke.”
Breath of relief. “A hell of an expensive joke for Sullivan.”
“It’s not Sullivan’s payoff money, he wouldn’t have that much cash ready at hand. It’s the stuff Kyler skimmed. You were trying to keep it for yourself.”
“How do you figure that?”
“Because you forgot to mention it to Doc.”
“Of course I did. I’ve learned to nail my trap shut in this town, you live longer. Besides, for all I knew, he might have taken it and done a bunk on us both.”
“Oh, yeah, sure, that was the first thing that crossed your mind.”
She wasn’t going to believe me, so I gave it up. I wasn’t believing me, either. “Okay, I won’t deny I was tempted. It seemed a shame to leave it lying around for Sullivan to stumble on, so why shouldn’t I make a try to get rich? I went to a hell of a lot of trouble to get it out of the basement and succeeded. Nothing left for me then but to get Doc out and make sure you and Sullivan settle up your own accounts—but Maxwell spoiled all that, so you’ve got your money and I’m out of luck.”
“But what was in the car was not what I was supposed to get from Sullivan.”
“Lady, what do you expect? You’ve got the cake, the frosting, the whole damn kitchen, now you want more on top of all that?”
“You better believe it. I want the money that was coming to me for selling the books to Sullivan.”
Jeez. And I thought I was greedy. “And how much would that be? He’d have never given you anything near the amount you have now. It’d have been cheaper for him to kill you than pay you off with this kind of cash. Think it over. Put yourself in his place. Would you have paid him that much?”
That closed her down for a moment.
Doc snorted. “Balls and brains. Maybe you should marry him, girl.”
We both shot him an annoyed look.
I picked up the thread again. “The way I see it, I’ve done my part of the deal. I got Doc back, you have your money, all that’s left is your part of the trade, but now you give the books to me instead of to Sullivan.”
“Why the hell should I do that?”
“Relax, it’s not like I’m going into the business myself.”
“Then what do you want them for?”
“So I can hand them over to Merrill Adkins.”
“What! You’re crazy!” She added a few other personal observations about me that I let pass. She was entitled to an opinion.
When she wound down, I said, “You ready to hear why yet? You just might like it.”
She jerked her chin. It looked like a nod. A hostile one.
“Here’s the picture for now: Sullivan is set to take over from you, and it’s going to happen with or without the books or Opal. He can glean what he needs from local sources; it’ll take time, but he can do it, leaving you out in the cold.”
“I thought you said I’d like it.”
“Now picture this: Give the books over to Adkins. He starts doing his sheriff act and cleaning up the town. The newspapers follow him like hungry puppies while he feeds them gangbusters for real, closing down business. The kind of stuff Sullivan does can’t take too much publicity, if any. The revenues drop to nothing, he’ll be sending excuses to New York, but all they’ll be seeing is that he’s bungled the job. Before you know it, Sullivan’s out in the cold—and without a carful of cash like what you’ve got.”
“He’ll find a way to cover himself.”
“Maybe with the law, but not with his New York friends. And don’t forget about Maxwell’s vaudeville act backing up what the books will be telling all those busy little federal bookkeepers. It wouldn’t surprise me too much if everything blows up in Sullivan’s face like a two-ton bottle rocket.”
“What made Maxwell turn stoolie?”
I shrugged. “Maybe he got religion. Who cares as long as Sullivan gets burned for it and you’re in the clear?”
“Then I can move in.”
“No, that’s not the idea at all, Adkins will have done too much damage to what’s there.”
“I can always start in on new places.”
Froze her with a look. “No, you won’t!”
She gasped. Doc straightened and Newton brought his gun up. I threw my hand out and was within a hair of vanishing. It’d be a mess, but I’d deal with it somehow.
No bullet, though. Newton held off as Doc glared, but did not give the high sign. “You just behave yourself, boy.”
Gave him a thin spasm of a smile, no humor behind it. Too bad I couldn’t hypnotize him, but yo
u could smell the booze on his breath at two yards. It wouldn’t take.
“If—” said Angela, recovered from the push I’d given her. “If Maxwell is spilling his guts, then that should be enough for Adkins. He won’t need the books.”
“Oh, but he will. The courts like seeing things on paper.”
“I need them more than they do.”
“You’re not getting the point—once they start investigating, the books will not only be useless to you, but pure poison. Whoever has them, whoever uses them will get caught. These guys know know to trace stuff, they’ll find you.”
“But—”
“And when they find you, they find your father. You want him to be turned over to one of their institutions while you’re serving time? We already talked about this, and you weren’t too happy about the idea.”
She suddenly looked ready to boil over—onto me.
“On the other hand, giving the books to Adkins puts that many more nails into Sullivan’s coffin. Maybe you won’t have the business, but he won’t get it either. He takes the fall instead, while you’re home free with all that cash to play with. It sounds like a beaut of a deal.”
She snorted. “And what do you get out of it?”
“I was figuring myself in for a small cut of the cash. Ten percent would be fine, I’m not too greedy.”
This time she laughed out loud. “No, but you’ve got a hell of a nerve.”
“Only for what I’ve earned.”
“I’ll have to disappoint you.” She paused, waiting for me to protest, but I kept shut to hear her out. “You talk a good game, Fleming, but if I do have to leave town, it’s going to be with Sullivan’s cash as well. I sell him the books and have a good laugh on him. Adkins I couldn’t care less about. If he wants to put Sullivan away, he’s welcome to it, but I’m taking my cut first.”
I sat forward. “What, you’re actually going to meet with—”
“With Sullivan, yeah. Maybe I won’t get what was in the car, but it’ll look funny if I don’t take some kind of a payoff from him, no matter how much or little it is.”
“Quit while you’re ahead, Angela. As of tonight, it would be a really lousy idea for you to try dealing with him.”
“Oh, yeah? And why is that?”
“Because of your little fire out at the roadhouse. He knows about it and the murders.”
Blank look. “What fire?”
“Forget the Sarah Bernhardt act.”
“What murders?”
“Come on, I know Doc told you where to find Sullivan, so you and your boys had a little country drive to the joint, then set the bonfire.”
The collective looks they exchanged were too real to be discounted. There’s always one bad actor in a troupe who gives away the game, but I didn’t see any of that here.
“You saying the roadhouse is burned?” she demanded.
“Down to the basement steps.”
“When?”
“Tonight.”
“You’re lying.”
“If you think that, then call the papers, they should be finishing the report on it about now. It’s probably too late for the morning edition, but they might squeeze it into the afternoon—unless with the cop killings they decide to issue an extra.”
“Cop killings?”
“Couple of men named Calloway and Baker. Someone checked them out using your signature—a forty-five in the back of the head. They were working for Sullivan.”
“Fine with me, I never liked the bums, but I didn’t scrag ’em.”
“She did want to go to the roadhouse, but I talked her out of it,” said Doc.
I believed him, and the next few minutes really convinced me, since they had a few dozen questions about it that I couldn’t answer. At the top of the list was who did do it and why? By then I was figuring Gordy was behind it, but kept the idea strictly to myself.
“It had to be Sullivan,” Angela concluded.
My head was starting to hurt, and not from doing any fancy hypnosis. “You pick him for a reason or just because you don’t like him much?”
“I don’t know anyone else who would want to, including myself. That place was a real moneymaker, so why should I burn it? But I’m thinking if Sullivan does the job and puts the blame on me, then anything he does in reprisal gets full approval from his bosses.”
It sounded plausible if you discount the fact that it’d still be cheaper for Sullivan to just kill her instead of burn the place; I let her keep on thinking it.
The phone rang. Kept ringing. I counted to fourteen before it stopped. No one moved the whole time.
“Angela! You should have had someone catch the phone.” The same words as before from Frank Paco, the same tone. Same lack of expression. He still stared over my shoulder with his dead eyes.
“It wasn’t for us, Daddy.”
“You don’t know till you answer.”
Her face was all tight at she looked at him, bleak with heartbreak. It’s hell when the kid has to become parent to their parent, and she was having a harder time of it than most.
“Angela.” My tone was quiet, gentle.
“Go to hell.”
“Look at it square. I know you wanted to hand the whole organization back to him, but he can never take it.”
“Shut up,” she whispered.
“It’s not going to happen, not because of anything you did, but just because that’s how things turned out. You’ve got to take the money you have and get away from this town.”
“When I have the payoff from Sullivan—”
Held my hand palm out, calming gesture. “That’s not going to happen either, because he’s going to be thinking you torched the roadhouse, killed his men.”
“But I didn’t.”
“But he’ll think it, same as you thought he did it.”
“If he didn’t do it, who did?”
“It doesn’t matter, but like you figured, blaming you is going to be his story. Shutting you up is going to be his next step. You won’t get money from him, but a whole lot of bullets instead. If you get killed, your father—if he survives—goes to an institution.”
She pushed off the sofa and stumbled clear. Her breath came fast, her hands shook.
“I know this isn’t what you want to hear, but this is what you’re facing. You and your father can be alive with the cash you have, or risk death for a chance to have a laugh behind Sullivan’s back. I don’t think Sullivan is worth it. Any money you might get from him would not be worth it. If it comes to a choice between pride and living, I’ll take living any old day.”
She paced now, back and forth, her face flushed dark. She did this for a long time. Doc and Newton stayed where they were and stayed quiet. I did the same. The pacing finally, gradually slowed, and she turned to look at me.
“I suppose . . . I suppose I can already start laughing at the bastard,” she said. “He never knew about the other money being in the basement. If he ever finds out about it and thinks that he burned up seven hundred grand . . . ”
“He’d probably shoot himself—if New York doesn’t do it for him. Then there’s the other thing.”
“What’s that?”
“The money’s clean now. If anyone should ever find out about it, that it ever existed, they’ll think it went up in smoke like the rest of the joint. They won’t be looking for it.”
“Yeah, there’s that.” She liked that idea, warmed up to it real quick. “I guess you’ve done me a big favor, Fleming.”
I let her smile over that one, it was a nice smile, for a killer. “Then lemme call it in.”
“Your ten percent?”
“Forget that. Just give me the books, those useless to you, poison-inyour-hand books. You want a last laugh at Sullivan, then be the one who puts him in jail.”
“Men like him don’t go to jail.”
“You never know. It’s that or he takes a long walk off a short pier wearing cement galoshes. Either way, you win.”
“What a
bout Opal?”
“Let me take care of her. You don’t have any work for her, do you?”
She shook her head. “Not anymore. Look, one thing about Opal? Don’t play blackjack or gin rummy with her, she’ll wipe the floor with you. You should find her a job at a casino. The odds favor the house, but guys never mind losing to a woman. She’d be really cute if someone taught her how to dress and do her hair. What do you think?”
I started to automatically object, but on second thought it was a damned sensible suggestion. Playing cards were just numbers, after all, and the variables involved just might hold her interest. “I’ll think about it. So will she.”
“But how do you get her away from Sullivan?”
“That’s my problem, but not to worry, I can do it.”
“I bet you can, blue eyes.”
“So—just where is that seven hundred grand?”
Another laugh. “Someplace else.”
Well, I’d done my grieving earlier tonight. The money was gone and never meant to be mine. On the other hand, I’d already taken my cut from it with the cash I’d stuffed in my pockets. That was roughly ten percent. Nothing to sneeze at on its own. “You gonna take it to Switzerland?”
“Maybe.”
“I hear they never ask a lot of questions on where money comes from. I also hear that most of ’em speak Italian.”
“You sound eager to get rid of me.”
“Only because the guns are pointed in my direction, but yeah, it would be a good idea for you and yours to leave. Sullivan could be the next one through the door, and if it’s all the same to you, I’d rather the both of you just keep missing each other.”
“What, he’d come here looking for Maxwell?”
“You got it. Look at me. . . .” I gestured at my scruffy appearance. “I got like this having a dustup with some of his boys. He’ll know who to come looking for and where to start—”
“Okay, Doc, Newton, get Daddy out to the car.”
“Not so fast, sweetheart—where are the books?”
For a second I thought I’d have to take a chance and give her a nudge, but she barked out a short laugh. “All right, they’re at the dance studio.”
“You figured Sullivan wouldn’t search a place that was already raided?”
“Nah, we just didn’t have time to get them out.”